“No!” Ternigan cried. “You have been misled, Lord Palliako! This is a conspiracy against me!”
“Guards, please escort the traitor outside.”
Ternigan struggled, but he had no weapons and no one to take his side. The guardsmen hauled him roughly out of the tent and sent him sprawling in the mud outside. Geder walked after him, the warmth of certainty and fury making him twice his height. His fists clenched and unclenched. The others came out behind him, one by one, until everyone from the tent stood in a rough circle. The guards hauled Ternigan to his knees.
“I demand a trial,” Ternigan said through a mouthful of mud. “I demand trial by combat. God knows I am innocent.”
“No,” Geder said. “He doesn’t. Captain. Your men should draw blades now.”
The captain gave the order, and the sound of a dozen swords clearing their sheaths filled the air. The sunlight glimmered on bare metal.
“This,” Ternigan said. “This is an injustice.”
“No. It isn’t,” Geder said. And then, “So. Who’s the buffoon now?”
Ternigan died quickly, the last of his blood spilling into the muck outside his tent. Geder watched him die with a sense of growing satisfaction. He wasn’t going to vomit this time. He was going to maintain his dignity. All around him, Lord Ternigan’s men stood slack-jawed and shocked. The wind made a soft whuffling sound like the noise of sails on a ship.
Canl Daskellin was the first to speak.
“There will need to be a new Lord Marshal. And quickly. The men are going to be disheartened by … by Lord Ternigan’s duplicity.”
“He was corrupted,” Basrahip said. “Turned against you, Prince Geder.”
“The Timzinae,” Geder said. “It’s their desperation.”
“As you say, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said mournfully.
“If you would like,” Daskellin said, “I can draw up a list of men who would make good generals for the kingdom, and we can—”
“No,” Geder said, rounding on him. “No. I am done with giving power over to generals and counselors and great men. Do you see what’s happened when I’ve done that? They turn. They all turn. I don’t want any more generals.”
His chest was working like a bellows, and his face felt hot even in the winter wind. Canl Daskellin nodded as if what he’d said made perfect sense, then paused and held out his open hand, the palm up like he was offering something.
“What do you want?” he asked, and his voice was gentle, calm, and polite. To judge from it, they might have been sitting leather couches in the Fraternity of the Great Bear rather than standing over the corpse of the Lord Marshal in the mud of a half-conquered battlefield. “If not generals to lead the armies or counselors, then who do you want?”
A friend, Geder thought. I want a friend.
Are you certain you won’t come with us?” Daskellin asked. “There is still time to catch up with the hunt if we join them at Masonhalm.”
“No,” Geder said. “You go on ahead. I’ll join you before the hunt’s over. Only not yet.”
Night made the gates of Kiaria more foreboding. The few fires that guttered in the camps seemed small in the face of the mountain that loomed above them, and the sky that rose above that. A half moon spilled its milky light over the valley. Dragons had been here once. Had fought here. Had built a massive fortress against each other that now the last remnant of their race had fled to. It made sense if the Timzinae truly weren’t humans that they would fall back to the old defenses, the old strategies. It was the size of the thing that overwhelmed him. The war between the goddess and the dragons stretched back farther than history, and now he was supposed to end it. He was surrounded by false friends and duplicity, conspiracy and violence, and he was the one who was going to lead the world to peace? It seemed impossible.
But still, he had to try. What would they say about him if he didn’t?
“This is still hostile country,” Daskellin said.
“I have guards.”
“Guards can be overwhelmed,” Daskellin said. “If you must go south, take a real force of soldiers with you.”
“They have to keep the siege.”
“There’s enough,” Daskellin said. “Nothing of substance is going to happen here before the new Lord Marshal comes.”
Geder leaned back in his chair. A falling star streaked through the sky, bloomed briefly, and was gone. A servant came and quietly spirited away the remnants of their dinner.
“All right,” Geder said. “If it will make you happy.”
“Thank you,” Daskellin said. “Who do you think sent those letters?”